THE END OF POLITICS'
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running for reelection in Kansas, do not specify to which party they be–
long. In general, people decreasingly identify themselves with a party.
The party no longer has the hold on the electorate that it once had.
While this is not the only factor in the decline of voter turnout, I think
it is an important one.
What has happened to the political party? Well, it has lost one after
another of its classical functions. One important function was patronage,
but civil service reform has reduced the power of the party as a means of
distributing jobs. Another function of the party was essentially welfare -
turkeys on Thanksgiving, food baskets at Christmas. The rise of the wel–
fare state and the New Deal effectively abolished that function of the
party. Another function of the party was its great role in the process of
assimilation and acculturation: along with the public school and the
factory, it was the great agency that moved immigrants into American
life. The decline of immigration, until recently, removed that function.
So one after another, the classical functions that gave the party a role in
the process disappeared.
But the most drastic change has come with the rise of the electronic
age. Even after they lost these other functions - to the civil service, to
the welfare state, and so on - the parties retained one important func–
tion: they were the great mediators between the voter and the politi–
cian. If the politician wanted to know what the sentiment was in a cer–
tain locality, he would consult the party leader. If the voter wanted to
know how to vote, he would listen to the local party leader. But the
entry into the electronic age, the spread of television and the computer–
ized public opinion poll, have ended the mediatory role of the party.
Today if a politician wants to know what the sentiment is in a local dis–
trict, the last thing he would do would be to call the party leader. He
takes a computerized poll. If a voter wants to know whom to vote for,
he doesn't consult the local party leader. He turns on the television and
makes his own judgment by what he sees on the tiny screen. So the party
has been bypassed by the political process.
When I was young, there were still volunteers in campaigns. There
were still bumper stickers and buttons. Professional politicians ran cam–
paigns. Now the whole thing has been turned over to electronic spe–
cialists. They do not come out of the political process; they come out of
the media. And television has in effect replaced the political party as an
agency for voter mobilization. The only exception is that it lacks the
organizing ability of the party, at which it is much less effective. The
electronic age - and this is to address William's question of whether this
is an international phenomenon - is an international development.
Everywhere around the world, parties are being enfeebled by the fact
that television and the computerized public opinion poll have taken over
